Monday is Wash Day and in case we forget what to do, the August 11 debut by Thomas Heilman (answers) lays out the formula in order: wash, dry, press, fold. Got it. There are two additional ten-letter answers and two more eight-letter ones that don't seem to be part of the theme so after a while I decided I was a silly goose for even trying.
Sometimes it's surprising when common words make their debut. The "cowboy's greeting" is HOWDY. Sure the letters are a little odd, but still. It's appeared in other puzzles several times but I guess we're a little more formal at the Times, Ma'am.
GABE has appeared 11 times, each occurrence in reference to Mr. Kaplan of Welcome Back, Kotter fame. There's an archangel fuming in heaven, wishing he hadn't been so formal back in the day so he could have shared the crossword honor with that 70's TV star. Ayn RAND gets another reference. I shrugged too. Solvers should note that her birth name was Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum. That's going to show up in a puzzle some day.
Crosswords cover the gamut of life experiences so every once in a while, no more often than that, a puzzle echoes something you just encountered somehow. Last night after posting my Sunday puzzle blog, Robin, Shay and I went to see the Seattle production of that "opera set along the Nile" and today AIDA shows up at 57 Across.
I'm not a constructor so I don't know from personal experience, but it seems to me it must be hard to start your crossword career with a Monday puzzle which has so many constraints. As we say at the opera house after the lovers die a somehow romantic death by being buried alive, Bravo.
Update: It turns out this wasn't quite a NYT debut after all. Nearly exactly a year ago under the name Tom Heilman, he had this Tuesday crossword published. He's now Thomas and that means I had to manually update my database. His constructor thumbnail page is correct now. Cruciverb reports he also had a L.A. Times puzzle in 2007 which included the clue "workout for some surfers." The answer is CYBER SQUATTING.
The "bravo" still applies. Thanks, PhillySolver, for the correction.
I can relate to that part about Monday constraints, Jim, having just spent the day working on a possible Monday puzzle with another constructor. It’s hard to know what words will or won’t fly, and we devoted a number of e-mail notes to whether such and such a word would cut it. In the present puzzle, for instance, the words HOWDY, GASSY, CABALA, CRIERS and FJORD seem to be making their first appearances in a NYT Monday, and the very common ELIDE has been used only once on a Monday, too, at least since 1997 or so. Also just once before for JAPE. (And those are just the ones I checked.) Monday, Tuesday, or whatever, I thought this was a classy job with lively fill. Congrats to Thomas Heilman on a very nice debut!
Myles
Posted by: Myles Callum | August 10, 2008 at 07:45 PM
I think this a Monday debut for Mr. Heilman, but I recall a Tuesday puzzle with a B theme....well, a Honey Bee theme that is. I think Myles is right and I appreciate the checking. There is a lot of freshness here for a Monday and certainty harder than you might expect if you weren't noticing that the really easy early weekday puzzles have been given a new face. Each one seems to have some unexpected fill and you can no longer do them BLINDFOLDED.
Posted by: PhillySolver | August 10, 2008 at 08:13 PM
I think all debuts are hard because a constructor's first published puzzle is not, in most cases, his or her first puzzle. There usually is a series of puzzles, some not so good, some a little better, before finally, with a little luck, the constructor gets that "Yes" response from an editor.
I haven't had a Monday so I don't know from experience either, but I do think Mondays are a challenge to construct. The theme has to be simple, not too tricky, but also fresh. A lot of the obvious themes have been done before. So coming up with a new theme is not so simple. Then the grid fill has to be easy enough for the novice solver. But also fresh. That's not so simple either.
Today's is a good Monday. All the long answers, including the theme, range from solid to excellent. There's no difficult vocabulary, but there are enough interesting words to make the solving experience worthwhile. I liked the progression of the theme. Four simple steps, it felt complete. Kudos to Thomas Heilman. Well done.
Posted by: john farmer | August 10, 2008 at 08:41 PM
i'll redundantly add my kudos to everybody else's. this was everything a monday puzzle should be.
Posted by: joon | August 11, 2008 at 07:02 AM
Excellent puzzle. I got a kick out of the "Don't tase me" clue.
Posted by: LindaB | August 11, 2008 at 07:30 PM